Many parents read bedtime stories to their children and don't realize all of the wonderful and amazing facial expressions that their children are creating while being read to. This problem is solved when a child is sitting on a parent's lap and the book mirror invention is attached to the book's cover. Then the parent or child can adjust the invention's position and the book's position until they both locate each other's reflections while using the mirror. The reader is now ready to read the pages of the book while glancing periodically at the listener. Likewise, while the reader is articulating words from the pages of the book or magazine, the listener can use the mirror to correlate lip movements of the reader with the audio words currently being spoken.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,637,631 discloses a combined book and mirror. However, this device is only good for one book and the mirror has to be manufactured into alternating pages of the book. Obviously, this wastes an entire page, or a part of a page, that would normally have been used by the adult to read to the child. Another disadvantage is that this device is inherently thicker and heavier than a book with a similar quantity of pages but without any mirrors. And, the device is inherently rigid and does not allow for adjustments of the mirror only without moving the book's position. This limits the reader and listener to clearly see each other's face while being comfortably situated in any position.
Likewise, there are now children's books on the market that have a mirror incorporated into the back cover of the book. It is believed that the orientation of such a mirror is suitable for the viewer to see his own face rather than to have a reader and listener see each other's faces. These books also suffer from some of the same, previously disclosed, disadvantages of U.S. Pat. No. 4,637,631. For example, every page of the book now has to have a large enough hole so each person can see each other's reflection in the mirror. This, again, wastes space that should normally be dedicated to words and/or pictures for the reader and listener. Moreover, the entire book has to be held in an orientation that allows the reader and listener to see each other in the mirror.
Other art, such as U.S. Pat. No. 2,473,938, discloses a combined photograph album and music box. Also, U.S. Pat. No. 170,042 discloses a photograph album which has been modified such that articles may be inserted into the book.
Book-lights of various types are, of course, well known in the prior art. Most all of these lights are of standard size and are adapted to be clamped or attached to the back cover of a book. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,695,271, U.S. Pat. No. 4,598,340, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,869,529 all disclose book light devices that attach to the cover for the purpose of illuminating pages of a book. However, none of these discloses a mirror that is designed and manufactured as an integral part of the whole product.
Consequently, a significant need exists for mirror that may be easily attached to a book.